Improving my SQL skills through your questions!

I think there are numerous reasons for why I love technology but at the top of the list: learning. It’s amazing to me that not a day goes by where I don’t dig deeper into something or clarify it further. Even learning something trivial, like a new keystroke, can make our work easier to do and make us more productive at it. Things are constantly changing; the one thing I do know about technology is that there’s a lot to learn!

So, to start, thanks for everyone’s feedback (esp. Steffen Krause here) on some of my recent posts regarding LEFT and RIGHT based partitioning functions here. There was a lot feedback regarding the simplicity in syntax and declaration of a RIGHT-based partition function and by making the first partition of a RIGHT-based partition function empty, YOU’RE RIGHT! We can eliminate the need for data movement. There’s no performance difference and it doesn’t matter internally which type you choose but – I’ve heard you all loud and clear! You don’t like dealing with the imprecision of a datetime data type when specifying upper boundaries. So, having said that – I need to make a few changes. In my next revision of my presentation materials, whitepaper, scripts, etc. I’ll work to give both perspectives. For some reason, I still like LEFT-based partition function but RIGHT is definitely easier to define.

So, keep it coming everyone. You’ve hit the nail on the head. The fun part about technology is… no one knows everything and we’re all always learning!